Affected State employees, teachers, etc. Pay up & shut up. I've been paying an ever increasing share for my health insurance & retirement each year. No pay increase for the past 3 or 4 years. Welcome to the reality of our economy.

As for the Democrats hiding in Illinois: Come back & do the job you were elected to do. You fools helped pass Doyle's budgets that got us into this mess in the first place.

As a public employee you're right, the cost of my benefits hasn't gone up significantly (they have gone up some though). However, I've taken pay cuts and we have faced layoffs and there are more coming. It's not like we've all been sitting idly by watching everyone else suffer...

Actually, an 8 hour day would have been pretty much up by that point and I hadn't taken a lunch yet (we started early to work on a project without interrupting others work). I was still at work after doing about 9 hours of legitimate work that day and had worked hours from home, etc. through out the week. So, if anyone would like to talk about paying me overtime for the week we can also talk about taking a short break to write a message.

Walker is not a good person. It`s as simple as that. That tape recorded phone conversation proved that.'http://scottwalkerwatch.com/?page_id=91'Time to plan Scott Walker recall election after his first year in officeBy David Tatarowicz Dec. 2010 According to WI Law, any elected official may be confronted with a Recall after their first year in office.

Scott Walker will be inaugurated on Jan 3, 2011 --- so earliest is January of 2012.

Why do I think that WI citizens will be ready to recall Walker in 2012?

Look at the biggest and boldest promise Walker has made --- to create 250,000 jobs and add 10,000 businesses in WI by 2015 !!!

(and filling fired Wisconsin public employees with private contractor employees is not the creation of a job!! )

And as of today, almost a month before he even takes office, Walker has succeeded in losing over 5,000 jobs by killing the Fast Rail Project between Milwaukee and Madison -- and sending our $810,000 million to other states !!!

(and we complain that WI does not get its fair share of revenue from the Fed Govt in relationship to the taxes we send to DC)

That adds 5,000 more jobs he needs to create for a total of $255,000 !!!

By the end of 2011 when Milwaukee County has felt the full affects of Walker's previous tenure as County Executive --- citizens will realize the Emporer has no clothes !!!

Bottom line is life is about choices. I chose to work in the dental profession. Very few benefits. Unless of course you choose to work for a corporate dental facility. Which I would not because I feel that there is a lack of quality care. State workers and teacher chose their professions for many reasons one of which is benefits. Telling them to shut-up and pay up is just ridiculous and rude.

They have made sacrifices just the same as we have. Many teachers buy classroom supplies, out of pocket, due to cuts in school budgets. Can they use that as a tax deduction? Yes. Very insignificant impact on their bottom line taxes however. Why do they do it? Because they don't want to see the kids short changed on education.

A childhood friend of my boys is a guard at one of the state's maximum security prisons. He told me recently he can't imagine too many people doing what he does for the pay he receives. Right around $30,000 per. Not bad wages but not big wages for a single parent that has to be paying for daycare. He is willing to pay more. For him it's not about having to pay, it's the collective bargaining and the manner in which Gov. Walker has dealt with the entire situation. Poorly.

Gee Kerry, what was I thinking, I forgot that I was working in the private sector and we weren't allowed to use the company computers for anything other than company business and certainly not on company time, or even on our breaks.

Must be another one of those special perks for state employees !

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

Wow, this whole Wisconsin-Walker thing is dividing even our message board. This may be just the start of the revelution many have wondered when would happen. The way I see it is change helps and hurts. Some will like the change and some will hate it. Many years ago a song by Jefferson Airplane had lyrics that said, "Life is change, how it differs from the rocks.....our life is to survive, and be alive...." To the people who can't adjust to the changes, you will live. Get used to change, there will be lots of it in our future.I also think that the union workers will, even after Walker supposedly disbands the unions, be still way ahead of most. Around Tomahawk we have two mills and Harley that offer better than average pay, actually much better. That's why there is a waiting list to get into those places. I know people that work at those jobs are making over 25 bucks an hour. Oh so sad that maybe with the extra hit on bennys they will still be making 20 bucks. When I was working I was making 11 bucks an hour. Who has it good and who has it bad????? And the teachers, with a great salary, are off all summer. Wouldn't that be nice for all the fishermen and campers and hobbiests. Get use to change, there will be many more changes to get used to in our future.

Aside from all the pros and cons about Walker's fiasco you are right about choices. I always said if I had to do it over again I would have chose to be a dentist and really be in the chips. Plus, I'd be bringing the nitrous oxide bottle home with me every night.

Actually Old Scout, I work in IT, and have worked in both the public and private sectors. Courts have at least occasionally upheld employees being able to keep emails over company email systems private in some cases. They also have held up employees using company computers for basic web browsing in most cases. Most companies expect it and don't even bother discouraging it at this point. Some companies encourage it because having their employees using social media can help promote the company. It's extremely common for most employees at most companies to check up on their Facebook pages, email, etc. during breaks at work.

What's more rare, is companies allowing employees to use non-company resources to do their work. It poses potential security risks as most people don't know how to properly configure a computer to operate securely. Fortunately, Gannett, my former employer, allowed me to do this on a regular basis (I used my own laptop, etc.). I do the same thing at the UW. So, if we're going to make the argument that I can't use the Internet at work during a break, especially in a public building where they allow ANYONE (you included) to walk in and use some of the computers and internet then I'm also going to argue that some of my internet bill at home should be paid for since I also use that for work, my cell phone which also gets used for work, etc. I've also brought in tools and supplies that we only needed on a one-time basis or we simply couldn't buy as a department.

Deb, actually I'm not grasping at anything, just giving Kerry a little jab to let him know that he actually has it better than a lot of us working stiffs. We weren't even allowed to get e-mail that came from anyone other than other employees and related to business matters. If anyone sent us e-mail from outside the plant, we had to report it and they would block the address. If we didn't we were subject to disciplinary action. Don't even think about surfing the web for things that didn't pertain to business. Their big concern is getting a virus or worm into the system that someone could pick up coming in over e-mail or from a web site. If Kerry was allowed to do that he is better off than a lot of us.

Deb, lighten up and quit taking everything so seriously. Actually I think you are the one grasping at straws in trying to push your agenda when what I was talking about had nothing to do with it.

I have no intention of getting into a discussion with you over this. I have my opinion and you have yours and I can not see anyway that anyone on this message board is going to change their mind because of all the BS that has been posted in the last couple of weeks. Most of it is more emotion than fact and a lot of it made no sense what-so-ever. You can disagree with me all you want but I plan on ignoring this board until I see something worth responding to.

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

Thank you for contacting the American Medical Association (AMA). Physicians are entitled to participate in grassroots actions and political demonstrations to advocate for change. While supporting political activity intended to gain the attention of elected officials, physicians must not engage in any activity that compromises their trusted role as physicians or the high ethical standards of the medical profession. Recent allegations that some Wisconsin physicians have provided work excuses to people attending rallies in that state without conducting an appropriate clinical exam are not consistent with accepted medical ethics. The AMA has been informed that the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board, the entity that licenses and disciplines physicians, has received information about these events.

First of all, as a teacher and state employee, I know I'm biased. I'm also hurt, angry, and discouraged. The amount of teacher-trashing on this boards and other boards across the state truly saddens me. I am a good teacher, and I love my profession. I have the most wonderful profession (not "job") in the world. I get to work with children every day, who are typically much more fun than adults. I get to start a "new job" every September with a new group of kids. But... I will NEVER apologize for my salary and benefits.

In 1993, former Governor Tommy Thompson (who I can't believe I'm missing right now) imposed the Qualified Economic Offer. The QEO mandated that school boards offer their teachers a 3.8% wages and benefits package and not one penny more. Remember, during the 1990's and early 2000's many in the private sector were receiving salary increases WAY over the cost of living. (The QEO was repealed a few years back.) What the QEO meant for all teachers was for many of those years our wage increase was minimal, nothing, or we took a cut. The rising cost of insurance ate up most or all of that 3.8%. Personally, there was one year I brought home less pay than the previous year.

I know I receive great insurance and a pension. However, if I had received pay raises comparable to those in the private sector, I would be tens of thousands of dollars ahead. The gap is huge, but I always considered my benefits to be the trade-off to make up for the minimal (or no) wage increases.

Ask yourself this: If your employer came to you and told you that you'd have approximately $5000 less take-home pay per year (that's on the low end of what I've heard) would you seriously just sit back, smile, and say, "Well sure, everybody has to do their part?" I personally feel like I've done my part for many years.

And do you seriously believe that taking that much money from most of our state employees is not going to have an effect on this state's economy?

This will have far-reaching ramifications for this state. Governor Walker has thrown his pebble into the pond - the ripples have just begun.

What Jeff? I can't hear you too well, your voice sounds distant, kinda like you're in a barrel. Wait a minute, what's going on now? My toes and fingers are tingling!I don't understand the question. I'm really confused. "Hey cDoc, can you turn that up a little higher?"

and by the way, I don't give a **** about this divided tension, I'm still gonna have fun on here gettin my freak on! Life's too short and they say in a song lyric, "tension, it ain't worth a dime..." .......oh this nitrous makes me sooooo happy! ( that part's not in the song)

"My toes and fingers are tingling!" ..... "...gettin my freak on!" Catfish, you are indeed alive, well and living the good life. Out here we call that living in LaLa Land. You would fit in just great !!!!

BTW...this is not the Northwoods Humor section.

Be careful about breaking the tension...something might snap. Maybe the Dems will come back and Walker will come out of the fog. Who knows, they might even work something out. Heck, If Charlie Sheen can explain things clearly, the politicians in Wisconsin ought to be able to do the same thing.